


Breathing Space

by dustlines



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Schmoop, Team Free Will (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 15:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustlines/pseuds/dustlines
Summary: Charlie is visiting, Sam is recovering from the second trial, Cas is injured and graceless after breaking Naomi's mind control, and Dean is a nervous wreck when it comes to being around people who he has openly declared he needs.Excerpt:"Dean," Sam says, "you're smart enough to know you're not making any sense. Casmeltswhen people hug him. How can you be his best friend and notknowthat?"Dean doesn't know how to take this in, especially since that was definitely not his experience when he'd tried to give Cas a hug in Purgatory. "When haveyoubeen hugging him?" he gasps, unreasonably offended for no reason he can easily define. "How would you even know that?"





	Breathing Space

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2013! According to my notes, it takes place during the speculatory break between 8x20 and 8x21, explores some of Cas' negative mindset in 7x21, and involves the aftermath of Castiel breaking free of Naomi's mind control during the infamous crypt scene.

* * *

Cas is having trouble holding himself together, or at least that's what he looks like. They're in the Men of Letters bunker in the middle of the night, and Cas is sitting on one side of a maroon velveteen couch while Dean sits on the other side, both of them stewing in the fact that they now have to face what it means to need each other enough to break through mind control, all because Dean had to open his big mouth to avoid getting pummeled to death. Charlie, in her brightly-colored clothes, fills up the chasm of space between them both. She is holding Castiel's hand up so that she can look at his palm, and Castiel is simply letting her do it.  
  
"You're even cooler up close," Charlie says, in a tiny, awestruck voice. Her clothes are smudged with ash and she smells a little like the restaurant they'd just escaped that had been full of dead things. They all kinda smell like that.  
  
Meanwhile, Castiel's face is bruised and bleeding. He has a black eye and a split lip, and he smells like he's carrying the weight of more death than any of them.  
  
"Thank you," he rasps, and maybe it's the fingermarks and swelling on his throat that's softening his voice, or maybe it's something else. He pulls his hand free from Charlie's, shutting his eyes as he slumps back against the arm of the couch behind him. Healing without grace, apparently, is tiring.  
  
"Yeah, he's larger than life, isn't he?" Smirking proudly, even though he can't meet Cas' eyes, Dean reaches over both of them and drags a blanket down from the back of the couch.  
  
Cas flinches when the blanket covers him, then he frowns and tenses his muscles to cover the brief shudder that rumbles through his bones. At about the same time, both Cas and Dean apologize, only Cas is apologizing for being terrified, and Dean is apologizing for something else entirely.  
  
"No, it's... it's fine." A lie. This isn't _fine_. Dean is so exhausted from absolutely everything. He can't even touch his best friend without sending him off into a panic attack. Whatever mind games Naomi has been playing on Cas, and now these signs of apparent physical _torture_ , Dean is pissed.  
  
He doesn't know how to deal with this.  
  
"Charlie?" Dean's heart is pounding, his muscles tight. Charlie looks sad, like she already knows what he's about to do, but she nods anyway. Her hand runs a soothing line over Cas' upper shoulders as Dean stands up to go check on Sam. 

* * *

  
Leave it to Dean's little brother to have a Vulcan-green skin flush, and yet still care more about other people's pain than his own. Sam sits up in his bed, tired and covered in sweat as he weakly holds a bowl of tomato rice soup in his hands.  
  
Dean sinks onto the side of the bed and puts his head in his hands. "Oh my god, Sam, what am I going to do? Naomi _de-angel-ized_ him."  
  
Sam is quiet, much of his strength depleted from the second trial's ever-deepening effect on him. He tips his spoon closer to his mouth, blowing on it before saying, in a hoarse voice, "Is he hurt a lot?"  
  
Dean's head wobbles on his neck, and he grips his own short, prickly hair as much as it will allow. Beneath his feet is a blood-stained tissue that missed the trashcan. With a deep breath, he toes it to the side, slightly outside of his immediate range of vision. This, he can do. If he can shift to objective, cold facts, he can summarize a list of injuries, no sweat.  
  
"Mostly superficial damage. Naomi broke his nose, jarred his wrists pretty good, and there's a ton of bruises and some small puncture wounds. I think they were playing with him, Sam. You saw how he reacted when I tried to lift him from the floor."  
  
"Oh." Sam squints, then accuses, "So you're in here, with me, because you don't want to see Cas panicking again."  
  
Dean winces. It's only part of it, and he doesn't want to expose his friend like that, but, "Yeah, I know that's horrible. He freaked me out, though. He seemed... scared... of _me_."  
  
Sam looks into his soup, eyes darkening at the memory. He swallows, then nudges Dean with his knee through the blankets. "You really shouldn't be in here with me."  
  
"And why not?" Dean snaps back, defensively, " _You're_ sick, and _Cas_ is gonna be fine. Charlie's looking after him right now."  
  
Sam outright rolls his eyes, huffs a little, and knees Dean just a little more insistently through the blanket. "Look, man, I get it, Charlie's great, but she's still not you. Who do you think is gonna have a better chance of making Cas feel better? You should really give him a hug or something."  
  
"A hug?" Dean can't keep a little bit of offense from sneaking into his voice. "After he's been _tortured_? No. He's _scared_ of me, Sam. That's not a good idea. Besides, Charlie's pretty good at upbeat speeches. She could—"  
  
"Dean, for god's sake!" Sam's metal spoon rings against his bowl as he slams it down. "Cas broke some pretty serious mind control for you. You think he can't break a little conditioned fear if it's _you_ helping him do it?"  
  
Dean pulls back, startled. "Hey, don't get pissed at me for this! This isn't my fault! I had _nothing_ to do with what Heaven did to him, but if he's reacting to being around me so badly, I'm not gonna sit next to him, give him a hug, and make it worse!"  
  
Again, Sam is rolling his eyes, though his exasperated huff is tempered by a sudden coughing fit. Blood sputters from his mouth, and he turns to lay his bowl down on the bedside table to keep from spilling it. Dean jumps towards him, but settles when Sam takes a deep, even breath and then uses his sleeve to wipe clean his chin. "No, no, I'm okay."  
  
Hand on his brother's back, Dean stares wide-eyed down at him. "Are you _sure_?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." With a look of barely-contained irritation, Sam rolls back to face Dean. "Look... Dean, you're smart enough to know you're not making any sense. Cas _melts_ when people hug him. How can you be his best friend and not _know_ that?"  
  
Dean doesn't know how to take this in, especially since that was definitely not his experience when he'd tried to give Cas a hug in Purgatory. "When have _you_ been hugging him?" he gasps, unreasonably offended for no reason he can easily define. "How would you even know that?"  
  
"Are we really having this conversation? Now?" Clearly exasperated, Sam pulls his blankets over his head and curls up under them with a grumble. His mumbled voice continues, "When he was still — I dunno, crazy, I guess — he came up to me for hugs all the time. Meanwhile, you, he was petrified to go near. I don't think you even noticed he was asking me for them."  
  
Dean's stomach drops to somewhere roughly stationed in China. "What?" he says, around a dry and dusty throat. He tries to remember that time before Purgatory, feels his mind recoil in horror even at the thought. Cas had spent a lot of time sitting in corners and burying his head in his knees, his own arms tight around himself. It's not hard to imagine that self-protective gesture being sought from someone else willing enough to offer it.  
  
"Yeah." Sam shifts under the blankets, getting comfortable. "He gets scared sometimes. You know that. He's probably scared now, and you're _hiding_ from him."  
  
Dean covers his eyes, already standing up from the bed. "This... oh."  
  
"Yeah, _oh_." Sam isn't even bothering to hide his sarcasm, absolutely radiating pissed-off-little-brother rays from beneath his blankets. He waves his hand over the top of them, aiming roughly towards the door. "Now go away. I feel sick."  
  
Dean goes, but not before setting a trashcan up below the hand hanging over the edge of the bed. His little brother gives him a thumb's up, and with that small blessing, Dean ducks his head and leaves the room.

* * *

Castiel is right where he left him, but Charlie is plugging in her laptop cord against the far wall. She rises from a crouch when Dean reenters the room, her eyes flickering back and forth between Dean and Cas, who is staring blankly in her direction.  
  
"I thought," she stammers, and gestures to the laptop sitting on the coffee table beside Castiel's stocking feet. She's clearly helped Castiel take off his shoes, which are now sitting primly beside her backpack, but she hasn't touched his tan coat or any other part of his clothing. "...I have cartoons on there. And _Star Wars_. And other shows. I don't know what he likes, but I know when I have a bad day, it helps to—"  
  
Dean takes a deep breath, walks closer, and then pulls her into a hug. He needs to calm himself down, and maybe she realizes this, because she quickly wraps her arms around him just as tightly.  
  
"He's looking at you," she whispers into his ear. Though Dean isn't looking back, he's willing to bet Cas' current expression is a lot more focused than anything Charlie's seen from him so far.  
  
Dean squeezes Charlie just to make sure she knows he's heard, and then lets her go, holding her at arm's length. "Hey, you remember where the spare bedroom for you is here, right?"  
  
Charlie nods while scrambling over to grab her bag. "Oh. Yep! I've got all my essentials here, and I'm... I'll be good. Do you wanna keep the laptop with you, maybe? You can, so long as you just don't frack up my settings."  
  
Before she leaves the room, Cas lifts a hand to grip her sleeve. There's a degree of gratitude in his eyes that no one should ever have to feel just because someone sat down with them and held their hand for a little while.  
  
"Thank you, Charlie" he says, and his eyes flicker to Dean's over her shoulder.  
  
"Hey, it's no sweat, for reals!" She lifts Cas' hand to lay a featherlight, friendly kiss on his bruised, bandage-covered knuckles, and he looks back to her in surprise as she says, "Family needs to stick together."  
  
Castiel swallows at the words. Because it looks like he's hurting, Dean finds the motivation he needs to stride over to Cas and sink down beside him on the couch. Cas tenses immediately, then takes a deep breath and loosens up again. Castiel watches Charlie leave the room, her red hair bounding behind her, and then he takes another slow breath.  
  
Not pushing, Dean crouches over Charlie's laptop, clicking through folders in search of the perfect, happy cartoon. Castiel is a few inches to his left, holding tension in his body like he's not sure Dean really wants him to be there. Dean lets silence be their guide for a moment, waiting for Cas to gather his thoughts. Finally, he does.  
  
"They all looked like you," Castiel says, over the sound of soft clicks. He explains, "the doubles I was made to kill. They were made to look like you." The confession sounds like he's been forced to give it after being punched in the stomach, which might not be too far from the truth.  
  
Dean puts a hand on Castiel's shoulder, feeling his best friend's breath shift under the blanket Cas still has curled around him.  
  
"It's gonna be okay, Cas. I mean it."  
  
Castiel's hands curl in his lap. In fact, his entire body is curling inwards, as though he is trying to hide inside his own stomach.  
  
As Dean sets up a Looney Tunes video — and really, what are the odds that Charlie would have that show? — he feels Cas' gaze on him. He seems somewhat shellshocked that Dean is sitting next to him. Skin squirming at the intensity of the gaze and not knowing exactly what it is Cas must be picturing there, but imagining it must not be very good, Dean says, "You know... if you need to sit closer, that's fine. It's not gonna weird me out or anything."  
  
It takes a delayed moment, but then Cas sinks against his shoulder with the same tentative caution as someone trying to get used to unexpectedly cold water in a swimming pool. When he's all the way up against Dean's side, Dean hits fullscreen on the laptop and leans back, pulling Cas along with him.  
  
Cas sighs, just a shuddering exhale as his eyes slip shut. As Marvin the Martian runs around in space, Dean lets himself be the kitestring that is slowly trying to pull Cas back to Earth.  
  
"Are you in pain?" Dean asks, midway through an episode, and though he means physically, there's something about Castiel's startled twitch that makes him think the angel has misinterpreted him.  
  
Up against Dean's side, Castiel slips an arm around Dean's, the hold hesitant and afraid. It's not an answer, but it also is, and maybe it's the best declaration of need Dean is going to get from him for a while. When Castiel realizes he's not being pushed away, his grip tightens.  
  
"Okay," Dean breathes, and swallows hard. He puts an arm over Cas' back and settles in, "Well... I'm just gonna sit here until you're hurting less."  
  
Lit up by a computer screen, they lounge on the couch, trying to be what the other needs, and also trying not to think too hard about the cartoon logic of a place where even breathing in space is not as difficult as breathing can sometime feel on the blue and green world below.

  
.

  
2013.04.28

[.](https://dustlines.livejournal.com/19317.html)

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Please leave comments if you enjoyed this! Feedback helps me feel like my words are meaningful.

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